WATCH: Third Runway Vote: Heathrow Hunger Strikers Rally

As part of a rolling direct action campaign, five activists have completed a 14-day hunger strike, which began with arrests after spraying the windows of the Labour HQ, included a similar stunt at the SNP offices in Edinburgh and a further action including breaking windows at Conservative Central Office.

‘Vote No Heathrow’ is a grassroots non-violent direct action group trying to highlight the madness of a decision to expand Heathrow airport given the spectre of runaway climate change and the daily increasing scientific evidence that we are facing a worldwide catastrophe that requires immediate and sweeping reductions in carbon emissions. On medical advice, four of the hunger strikers began taking small amounts of nourishment on Saturday morning and a rally and protest was held in Parliament Square.

Genny Scherer, who is the oldest of the five, has decided to continue her fast until the result of the vote in the House of Commons, set for Monday. She hopes that MPs will be persuaded this is a moral question, and that a ‘yes’ vote will condemn millions of people to death as crops fail and extreme weather phenomena increase, leading to an unimaginable future refugee crisis.

Whatever the result of the vote on Monday, campaigners from a wide number of groups will still be fighting expansion plans, starting with legal challenges as well as more and bolder direct action. The government takes place just 3 days BEFORE a new IPCC report will be released that leaks show will be calling for much more serious action to curb carbon emissions.